1. Field
The present invention relates to mobile device security and in particular to restricting access to network resources via an in-location access point protocol.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and other web-connected devices are proliferating, both for use as business tools and for personal use. Such mobile devices may provide a platform for collecting, storing, processing and communicating data. In many cases, such data may be personal and/or confidential, such as personal contacts, financial information, and business materials.
Consequent to the proliferation of mobile devices, mobile security is an increasing area of concern in the field of mobile computing. Software and data related security of current devices, especially mobile devices, rely on a variety of features including virtual machines, inter-process communication, package managers, mobile device management systems, touch screen software components, shared memory, relational databases, device configuration signature checking, specialized debugging interfaces (e.g. Android Debug Bridge, and the like), trusted daemon processes, and the like to protect the information on the mobile devices. In an example, Android mobile devices use checks on inter-process communication to determine if an application should gain access to a particular system resource, such as the user's contact list. Virtual machine security checks, such as determining whether or not a specific native library should be loaded, are also employed.
However, such security approaches do not account for the physical location of the mobile device. Therefore, there is a need for location-based security solutions. More particularly, there is a need for security solutions that track the mobile devices, if any, within a particular location and grant or restrict access to a network resource based on which mobile devices are in the particular location.